Domain-general Executive Functions Research Articles

Taking your own path: Individual differences in executive function and language processing skills in child learners

Children as old as 5 or 6years display selective difficulties in revising initial interpretive commitments, as indicated by both online and offline measures of sentence comprehension. It is likely, however, that individual children differ in how well they can recover from misinterpretations and in the age at which they become adult-like in these abilities. To better understand the cognitive functions that support sentence processing and revision, the current work investigated how individual differences in children’s ability to interpret temporarily ambiguous sentences relate to individual differences in other linguistic and domain-general cognitive abilities. Children were tested over 2days on a battery of executive function, working memory, and language comprehension tasks. Performance on these tasks was then used to predict online and offline measures of children’s ability to revise initial misinterpretations of temporarily ambiguous sentences. We found two measures of children’s cognitive flexibility to be related to their ambiguity resolution abilities. These results provide converging evidence for the hypothesis that the ability to revise initial interpretive commitments is supported by domain-general executive function abilities, which are highly variable and not fully developed in children.

Brain functional plasticity associated with the emergence of expertise in extreme language control

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to longitudinally examine brain plasticity arising from long-term, intensive simultaneous interpretation training. Simultaneous interpretation is a bilingual task with heavy executive control demands. We compared brain responses observed during simultaneous interpretation with those observed during simultaneous speech repetition (shadowing) in a group of trainee simultaneous interpreters, at the beginning and at the end of their professional training program. Age, sex and language-proficiency matched controls were scanned at similar intervals.Using multivariate pattern classification, we found distributed patterns of changes in functional responses from the first to second scan that distinguished the interpreters from the controls. We also found reduced recruitment of the right caudate nucleus during simultaneous interpretation as a result of training. Such practice-related change is consistent with decreased demands on multilingual language control as the task becomes more automatized with practice. These results demonstrate the impact of simultaneous interpretation training on the brain functional response in a cerebral structure that is not specifically linguistic, but that is known to be involved in learning, in motor control, and in a variety of domain-general executive functions. Along with results of recent studies showing functional and structural adaptations in the caudate nuclei of experts in a broad range of domains, our results underline the importance of this structure as a central node in expertise-related networks.

Examining cognitive development from a conceptual change point of view: The framework theory approach

It is argued that it is fruitful to examine cognitive development from a domain-specific, conceptual change (CC) point of view, but that both domain-specific and domain-general approaches are necessary in order to understand how cognitive development happens. The article starts with a description of the framework theory approach to CC and an explanation of how this approach can account for students' difficulties in learning counter-intuitive science and math concepts. Framework theories do not seem to go away but continue to exist and interfere with access to scientific and mathematical concepts even in skilled adults. It is further argued that domain-general executive function abilities are involved in CC processes that require the inhibition of intuitive concepts embedded in framework theories. The article concludes with the suggestion that cognitive development may be seen from the lenses of dual-process theories and that the interactions between domain-specific CCs and domain-general processes may be responsible overtime for the development of new conceptual structures and new types of processing.

Theorizing and measuring working memory in first and second language research

Working memory (WM) generally refers to the human ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate a limited amount of information in immediate consciousness when carrying out complex cognitive tasks such as problem-solving and language comprehension. Though much controversy has surrounded the WM concept since its inception by Baddeley & Hitch (1974), an increasing number of cognitive psychologists have accepted WM as a multi-component system comprising both domain-specific storage mechanisms and domain-general executive functions (Miyake & Shah 1999; Baddeley 2012; Williams 2012). Such a fractionated view of this cognitive construct manifests itself clearly in distinct strands of WM-language research, where two contrasting research paradigms have emerged (Wen 2012).

Executive Functions and Academic Achievement: Current Research and Future Directions

Executive Functions and Academic Achievement: Current Research and Future Directions

Domain-specific control of semantic cognition: A dissociation within patients with semantic working memory deficits

Background: Semantic cognition depends on (a) semantic representations that code knowledge and (b) executive control processes that regulate access to this information such that relevant aspects are brought to the fore. It is not clear whether this second element, termed semantic control, draws on the same resources as executive processing in other domains. Aims: We investigated the degree of independence between semantic control and domain-general executive function by studying non-semantic executive control in three patients who had semantic control deficits, and problems maintaining task-relevant conceptual knowledge in working memory. Methods & Procedures: Patients completed (a) a phonological working memory task that manipulated executive demands and (b) a series of working memory tasks that loaded a variety of executive functions: updating information, dividing attention, and manipulating the contents of working memory. These tasks featured digits and letters, placing minimal demands on semantic processing. Outcomes & Results: While two patients displayed clear executive deficits on these non-semantic tasks, the third case (patient JB) showed fully intact non-semantic control despite a clear control deficit for semantic tasks. Conclusions: This dissociation suggests that executive control over semantic knowledge relies on partially distinct neural mechanisms to those involved in domain-general control.

Strategy modulates spatial perspective-taking: evidence for dissociable disembodied and embodied routes

Previous research provides evidence for a dissociable embodied route to spatial perspective-taking that is under strategic control. The present experiment investigated further the influence of strategy on spatial perspective-taking by assessing whether participants may also elect to employ a separable “disembodied” route loading on inhibitory control mechanisms. Participants (N = 92) undertook both the “own body transformation” (OBT) perspective-taking task, requiring speeded spatial judgments made from the perspective of an observed figure, and a control task measuring ability to inhibit spatially compatible responses in the absence of a figure. Perspective-taking performance was found to be related to performance on the response inhibition control task, in that participants who tended to take longer to adopt a new perspective also tended to show a greater elevation in response times when inhibiting spatially compatible responses. This relationship was restricted to those participants reporting that they adopted the perspective of another by reversing left and right whenever confronted with a front-view figure; it was absent in those participants who reported perspective-taking by mentally transforming their spatial orientation to align with that of the figure. Combined with previously published results, these findings complete a double dissociation between embodied and disembodied routes to spatial perspective-taking, implying that spatial perspective-taking is subject to modulation by strategy, and suggesting that embodied routes to perspective-taking may place minimal demands on domain general executive functions.

Parametric effects of syntactic–semantic conflict in Broca’s area during sentence processing

The hypothesized role of Broca’s area in sentence processing ranges from domain-general executive function to domain-specific computation that is specific to certain syntactic structures. We examined this issue by manipulating syntactic structure and conflict between syntactic and semantic cues in a sentence processing task. Functional neuroimaging revealed that activation within several Broca’s area regions of interest reflected the parametric variation in syntactic–semantic conflict. These results suggest that Broca’s area supports sentence processing by mediating between multiple incompatible constraints on sentence interpretation, consistent with this area’s well-known role in conflict resolution in other linguistic and non-linguistic tasks.

Bilingualism Tunes the Anterior Cingulate Cortex for Conflict Monitoring

Monitoring and controlling 2 language systems is fundamental to language use in bilinguals. Here, we reveal in a combined functional (event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging) and structural neuroimaging (voxel-based morphometry) study that dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a structure tightly bound to domain-general executive control functions, is a common locus for language control and resolving nonverbal conflict. We also show an experience-dependent effect in the same region: Bilinguals use this structure more efficiently than monolinguals to monitor nonlinguistic cognitive conflicts. They adapted better to conflicting situations showing less ACC activity while outperforming monolinguals. Importantly, for bilinguals, brain activity in the ACC, as well as behavioral measures, also correlated positively with local gray matter volume. These results suggest that early learning and lifelong practice of 2 languages exert a strong impact upon human neocortical development. The bilingual brain adapts better to resolve cognitive conflicts in domain-general cognitive tasks.

Relating developments in children's counterfactual thinking and executive functions

The performance of 93 children aged 3 and 4 years on a battery of different counterfactual tasks was assessed. Three measures: short causal chains, location change counterfactual conditionals, and false syllogisms—but not a fourth, long causal chains—were correlated, even after controlling for age and receptive vocabulary. Children's performance on our counterfactual thinking measure was predicted by receptive vocabulary ability and inhibitory control. The role that domain general executive functions may play in 3- to 4-year olds' counterfactual thinking development is discussed.

Theory of mind depends on domain-general executive functions of working memory and cognitive inhibition in children with traumatic brain injury

Relations among theory of mind (ToM), the executive functions of working memory and cognitive inhibition, and frontal lesions were studied using path analysis in 43 school-aged children with traumatic brain injury. The relation between cognitive inhibition and ToM involved a single mediated path, such that cognitive inhibition predicted ToM through working memory. Frontal injury had a direct impact on working memory, which then separately determined ToM performance, the direct single paths between frontal injury and ToM being nonsignificant. The expression of ToM in school-age children with traumatic brain injury is not domain specific, but instead depends on the domain-general functions of working memory and cognitive inhibition.

False beliefs and the frontal lobe

The role of the frontal lobes in social cognition has been a subject of interest since 1848 when Phineas Gage (that friend of the first year Psychology student) was struck in the head by a tamping iron. Some researchers think that the marked behavioural changes seen as a result of frontal lobe damage — insensitivity to social cues, indifference to the opinion of others and rampant egocentrism — are indicative of a specific impairment in the domain of social interaction. Work on childhood autism has reached a similar conclusion, suggesting that a specific deficit in an innate ‘Theory-of-Mind’ (ToM) function — the ability to ascribe mental states to others — underlies the social aspects of this disorder. However, others argue that the behavioural deficits seen in these conditions are the result of impairments in domain-general executive functions 1 Perner J. Lang B. Development of theory of mind and executive control. Trends Cognit. Sci. 1999; 3: 337-344 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (425) Google Scholar . A new study by Andrea Rowe and colleagues attempts to shed some light on this controversy by comparing ToM abilities with executive function performance in patients with frontal lobe damage 2 Rowe A.D. et al. ‘Theory-of-mind’ impairments and their relationship to executive functioning following frontal lobe excision. Brain. 2001; 124: 600-616 Crossref PubMed Scopus (316) Google Scholar .